Back cover blurb: On a lazy June afternoon in 1925 the
TARDIS materialises at the tiny railway station of Cranleigh Halt. Warmly
welcomed by the local gentry, the time-travellers look forward to a
well-deserved rest from their adventures. After a stunning performance at
a friendly cricket match, the Doctor, together with Tegan, Adric and
Nyssa, is invited to a splendid masked ball by Lady Cranleigh and her son,
Charles. But a dark menace haunts the secret corridors of Cranleigh Hall.
And before the ball is over, the quiet summer will be shattered by the
shocking discovery of a brutal murder...

I haven't seen the TV story, Black Orchid, but I
know that it is only two episodes long. I thus expected some depth from a
book that spread this fifty-minute historical over 143 pages. Did this
book then, with its original setting (upper-class, 1920s England), and its
gorgeous front cover, live up to my expectations?

In its first few chapters it did. The book is written in a leisurely,
witty style, taking in elements of its two most obvious influences - P.G.
Wodehouse and Arthur Conan Doyle. We get lovely little reflections on the
strict system of manners at the time (Terence Dudley has obviously done
his research). We also get some wry philosophical musings in the mind of
the Doctor; slight drunkenness in the mind of Tegan as she gulps champagne
and cocktails, and mildly amusing confusion at English sport and etiquette
in the minds of the alien companions. Incredibly, Adric is also made a
very likable character at the start of this tale, as he overcomes his
shyness to take to a dance floor.

In a world of cricket and parties, all this is fine. The problems
arise, however, when the plot kicks in. Dudley's relaxed writing style
means that moments of fast-paced action end up dragging. The Doctor seems
to spend forever wandering and pondering through secret passages, and the
kidnap of Ann is slow. Dudley also seems happy that entire lines of
conversation and scenes be repeated over and over again.

However, there is another more fundamental problem with this book.
Dudley's writing does indeed do an excellent job of bringing this TARDIS
crew to life. Unfortunately, this is one book in which the TARDIS crew
are almost totally irrelevant to the plot. They are merely the red
herrings caught up in a crime drama - the people the police arrest by
mistake.

The real drama concerns Lady Cranleigh, her two sons and the character
of Ann Talbot. However, these central characters are not explored in
anywhere like the detail that Doctor and his companions are - they are
treated almost like extras. So when the Cranleighs' various revelations
come to light we really don't care. It therefore all ends rather
disappointingly - the scandal behind the whole story is highlighted in a
couple of sentences, there is then a small fight on a roof and finally the
reader is left shrugging apathetically.

This book was therefore a pleasant enough read, but ultimately rather
unsatisfying. It could easily have been improved, however, in one of two
ways. Firstly, if the story had been told from the perspective of a
character actually emotionally caught up in the drama (say family friend
and chief constable, Sir Robert) then the Doctor and his companions could
have been the slight oddities that they actually represent in this tale.
The focus of our attentions could then have remained on the real plot -
the Cranleighs. Alternatively, Dudley could have just cut out all the
deformed maniac stuff altogether, and stuck to a summery tale of cricket
and cocktails on the manor lawn.

The Doctor reflected, yet again, that curiosity was not
without its dangers. It even killed cats, and cats had nine lives. And the
Doctor's life was about to become more complicated than any projection of
his wildest dreams.
- The Doctor musing about when his cover will be blown, Black
Orchid, Chapter 2, Page 39

Black Orchid is a bit of an oddity within 1980s
Doctor Who. It is best known for being the last historical although
it really doesn't follow the typical historical formula. If the story had
just been about the Doctor being accused of murder and trying to
disentangle himself from it in order to get back to the TARDIS and dropped
the whole deformed murderer, this probably would have felt more like a
typical Hartnell story. Instead, this feels like a compromise.
Nevertheless, this is easily Terence Dudley's best script for the
Doctor Who series (compared to his Four to
Doomsday, The King's Demons and K9
and Company). The plot is better and the characters are better. Dudley
opted to novelize his own stories for Target and he would succeed in doing
so except with Four to Doomsday. I have to admit
that, going into the novelization, I wasn't expecting very much since
Dudley doesn't really have a great reputation among fans. Granted, his
reputation isn't as bad as Pip and Jane Baker, but fans don't exactly
flock to wax lyrical about his stories for 80s Doctor Who. So how
did his novelization stand up?

The novelization blew all of my expectations clear out of the water.
Dudley proves to be a fantastic writer of prose and character, and
delivers a cracking novelization. He doesn't just transcribe what we saw
on screen, but vastly expands the story to give us more background. We
learn more about Ann's childhood visiting Cranleigh Hall and befriending
George Cranleigh, we learn more of the expeditions George took the Amazon
and exactly why the story is called Black Orchid. We also see the
sheer depths to which Lady Cranleigh will go to conceal her son and "keep
up appearances". But there are even further details such as an explanation
as to why the Cranleighs have such a large secret wing of the house: at
one time they not only hid priests, but all the royal family during the
Roundhead period. The secret passages are more ingenious and we even get
some background on Dittar, the Indian who takes care of George.

One of my favorite aspects of this story is the regulars, who really
get to let their hair down in this story and enjoy time traveling rather
than just jumping from peril to peril. I think over time the series lost
this sense of time traveling as something other than a vehicle for getting
into peril. After all, why would the time travelers travel with the
Doctor? Why would the Doctor travel? I find it hard to believe that there
is a situation like the Sarah Jane Adventures special Death of the
Doctor where Sarah Jane and Jo are practically having an orgasm with
each other saying the names and remembering the monsters they encountered
during their travels. Weren't they screaming in terror at the time they
met these things? But here we get to see everyone relaxing and enjoying
themselves enormously.

I love Dudley's portrayal of the regulars. Tegan doesn't shout once in
the story and instead we discover that she is an avid cricket fan and
falls head over heels for the Doctor when she discovers how good he is at
playing it. She also becomes the cultural liaison for Adric and Nyssa, who
know nothing about the ways of Earth. Thus, for Adric and Nyssa, we get a
marvelous "fish out of water" subplot in which they are constantly puzzled
by everyday things such as how cricket works, what a "cocktail" is, or
what the Walrus and the Carpenter is (Lord Cranleigh tries to explain it
to Nyssa only to discover she doesn't know what oysters are). The Doctor
gets two whole chapters to show off his cricketing prowess and then
relaxes for a bath in what has to be one of his few relaxing moments
during his tumultuous adventures (the other being his trip to the Eye of
Orion in The Five Doctors). Dudley really brings out
the "old man in a young man's body" aspect to the Doctor especially when
he stands accused of murder and tries to argue his way out of it.

Lady Cranleigh makes for an unusual and ruthless villain. In fact, her
role of as villain is played up more in the book. She's shown to be more
cold and callous at setting the Doctor up for his wrongful arrest. You
just don't see villains like this on Doctor Who very much. She
isn't a cackling madwoman with dreams of world domination. She's a mother
protecting her child and a decent woman who lets her selfishness about her
own image and status lead her down the dark road she takes. You get the
sense that Lady Cranleigh isn't a bad woman, but that she has had to
construct a web of lies in order to hide her son George from the world and
when that web of lies threatens to come undone, she has to create more and
more lies just to keep things going. She essentially backs herself into a
corner that she cannot escape from. Mix this with a bit of "mother bear"
protection and you have an enemy who will do anything to see the Doctor
take the fall for her son's murders.

But Black Orchid isn't perfect. For one thing, Terence Dudley
makes two bad continuity errors. First he has the Doctor suspect that he
may have been sent by the Time Lords on a mission to solve the mystery of
Cranleigh Hall when he stands accused of murder. By this point, the Doctor
had long stopped running missions for the Time Lords and the idea that
they would send him to intervene in something so trivial to the time/space
continuum as a simple murder mystery and Lady Cranleigh's treatment of her
son is absurd. Second, to back this up, he then has the Doctor wonder if
the Time Lords sent him on purpose to stop the Master preventing the
signing of the Magna Carter in the middle ages during the story The King's Demons. Terence Dudley probably thought he
was being clever linking in another story he had written to this one, but
it's flat-out wrong, continuity-wise. The King's
Demons concluded Season 20 and happened long after Black Orchid. And he was traveling with Tegan and
Turlough in that adventure, not Tegan, Nyssa, and Adric!

Terence Dudley also gets the pacing of this story horribly wrong. I
realize that authors hated doing two-part stories because it was felt that
there wasn't enough story to cover a novelization, but this is ridiculous.
Black Orchid was badly paced to begin with, as the
murder mystery doesn't kick in until part 2 and is resolved almost as fast
as it is introduced. The book is even worse. With 9 chapters to the book,
the Doctor isn't even accused of murder until chapter 7! The rest of the
book consists of the Doctor wondering around secret rooms and the
companions enjoying the party. Dudley dedicates two entire chapters to
describing in immense detail the cricket match! I wonder if many kids were
turned off by this book, since it is clearly a book not paced for kids'
tastes.

But don't let those negatives deter you. On the whole, this is one of
the very best novelizations for the Fifth Doctor and a lost gem in the
same vein as William Emms' Galaxy Four. Don't let
the TV episode's reputation or the author's name deter you. This book has
very well-written prose, great characters and a marvelous attention to
period details. Plus, you get some amazing characterizations from all the
regular characters including Adric. This book is a not to be missed
"special edition" novelization. 10/10